wilkiecollins.com
The Game’s Afoot:
The Complete Sherlock Holmes, by A. Conan Doyle
The Moonstone was the first “detective novel,” a genre that has by now grown so large and unwieldy that it is difficult to discuss. However, there are a few classic authors that must not be missed. First and foremost among them is the collection of Sherlock Holmes stories, penned by Arthur Conan Doyle between 1887 and 1927. Over fifty short stories and four novels featured the Baker Street sleuth, and they are still delightful to read. Holmes combines a brilliant mind with a flair for showmanship, and in “The Valley of Fear,” he admits as much to his friend Watson:
“Surely our profession . . . would be a drab and sordid one if we did not sometimes set the scene so as to glorify our results. The blunt accusation, the brutal tap upon the shoulder—what can one make of such a denouement? But the quick inference, the subtle trap, the clever forecast of coming events, the triumphant vindication of bold theories—are these not the pride and the justification of our life’s work?” (Valley of Fear, 67)
Much of the charm of these novels lies in the chemistry between Holmes and his longtime friend, Dr. John Watson. Watson acts as a foil for Holmes, though never as an equal. He is courageous, loyal and somewhat dim. Since Holmes has little love for women, the closest thing he has to an intimate relationship is his friendship with Watson. He enjoys showing off his superior sleuthing skills for his appreciative friend:
“I’m not going to tell you much more of the case, Doctor. You know a conjuror gets no credit when once he has explained his trick, and if I show you too much of my method of working, you will come to the conclusion that I am a very ordinary individual after all.” (A Study in Scarlet, p. 43)
When Watson is wounded in an encounter with a criminal however, Holmes’s deep affection for his longtime friend and chronicler becomes apparent in his agitation. Watson is touched:
“It was worth a wound; it was worth many wounds; to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in that moment of revelation.” (The Adventure of the Three Garridebs, p. 59)
Did You Know?
Conan Doyle grew tired of Sherlock Holmes and wanted to get on to more serious writing, so he killed off his hero in “The Final Problem,” published in 1897. At Reichenbach Falls, Holmes has a final confrontation with Moriarty, his arch nemesis, and they both fall to their deaths into the falls. But, the public (and Doyle’s publishers) had not had enough of Sherlock Holmes, so Doyle reluctantly brought him back to life. In 1903 he published “The Adventure of the Empty House,” claiming that Holmes had survived the fight and rock-climbed up the falls. Fans were delighted and Holmes was back in business for several more adventures.
There is something unique about Sherlock Holmes that has captured the imagination of the public since the first story was published. Holmes’s character was loosely based on a real person, Dr. Joseph Bell, who was Conan Doyle’s professor at the Medical School of the University of Edinburgh. Doyle worked for Bell as an assistant during his second year, (rather like Dr. Watson) and was impressed by Dr. Bell’s powers of observation:
“Dr. Bell observed the way a person moved. The walk of a sailor varied vastly from that of a solider. If he identified a person as a sailor he would look for any tattoos that might assist him in knowing where their travels had taken them. He trained himself to listen for small differences in his patient’s accents to help him identify where they were from. Bell studied the hands of his patients because calluses or other marks could help him determine their occupation.
“In teaching the treatment of disease and accident,” Dr. Bell stated, “all careful teachers have first to show the student how to recognize accurately the case. The recognition depends in great measure on the accurate and rapid appreciation of small points in which the diseased differs from the healthy state. In fact, the student must be taught to observe. To interest him in this kind of work we teachers find it useful to show the student how much a trained use of the observation can discover in ordinary matters such as the previous history, nationality and occupation of a patient.” (The Chronicles of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Website)
Holmes is famously misogynistic, and, with the exception of the lovely Irene Adler (who also outwitted him) sees women only as a necessary evil. Here he is critical of a wife too quickly swayed by a servant:
“She does not shine as a wife even in her own account of what occurred. I am not a whole-souled admirer of womankind, as you are aware, Watson, but my experience of life has taught me that there are few wives having any regard for their husbands who would let any man’s spoken word stand between them and that husband’s dead body. Should I ever marry, Watson, I should hope to inspire my wife with some feeling which would prevent her from being walked off by a housekeeper when my corpse was lying within a few yards of her.” (Valley of Fear, p. 120)
With all his failings, Sherlock Holmes has a timeless quality about him; in any age he would be “hip.” Begin with “A Study in Scarlet” and move right through the stories to see a truly great character in the making. By the way, though I almost never like books written about famous fictional characters (like those “Mr. Darcy novels”—they just make you miss Austen!) there is a series based on Holmes that is absolutely marvelous. Laurie R. King’s Holmes/Russell series pairs the retired detective with a brilliant fifteen-year old orphan, Mary Russell. King’s prose is intelligent and her plots are ingenious. If you love Sherlock Holmes you’ll have a great time with these books.
About the Author: A. Conan Doyle
Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle was born in 1859 in Edinburgh, Scotland. His mother, Mary, had a passion for books and was a master storyteller. His father was a chronic alcoholic. Of his mother’s influence, Conan Doyle writes: “In my early childhood, as far as I can remember anything at all, the vivid stories she would tell me stand out so clearly that they obscure the real facts of my life.” Well educated, he spent seven grueling years at an English boarding school where he excelled in cricket and rebelled at the brutal corporal punishment. Later, he studied medicine at Edinburgh University where he met his mentor Joseph Bell; here, he also made the acquaintance of James Barrie and Robert Louis Stevenson. Conan Doyle traveled with Dr. Bell to Africa as doctor’s assistant and ship’s doctor. In Bell, he found a master at observation, logic, deduction, and diagnosis, qualities to be found later in the persona of Sherlock Holmes, the investigating detective.
During his studies and after, he wrote numerous stories and articles. In 1882, he settled in Portsmouth to open his own successful medical practice. He married and fathered two children. During his medical practice, he kept up his impressive output of fiction. The same year that The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1891) was published, the Conan Doyles moved to London. His wife would soon die of tuberculosis. In 1900, he served as a doctor during the South African War. He remarried in 1907 and fathered three more children.
The Sherlock Holmes writings are considered a major innovation in the field of crime fiction. The author wrote four novels and fifty-six short stories that feature Holmes. Dr. Watson narrates all but four stories, in a frame structure. Conan Doyle died in 1930 in East Sussex.
Sources:
sherlockholmesonline.org
online-literature.com
The Mother of All Mystery Writers:
The Agatha Christie Collection
Everybody knows Agatha Christie. From her first novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920) to her last, Sleeping Murder (1976), she enjoyed a career that spanned over fifty years, and revenues from her books reach into the billions of dollars. Only the Bible has sold more copies than her collected works. Christie’s mysteries have been translated to dozens of languages, inspired numerous other authors’ w
orks, and have been adapted to radio, the stage, and film. Her two greatest characters, the fussy, debonair Hercule Poirot and the deceptively frumpy Miss Marple, are beloved by millions of readers.
Agatha Christie almost single-handedly created the genre of the “cozy” mystery, with Miss Jane Marple (whom she modeled after her grandmother) as the perfect sleuth: elderly, unassuming, and devastatingly brilliant. Her wry take on the world around her continually delights us, as she avers, “The young people think the old people are fools, but the old people know the young people are fools.”
Like Sherlock Holmes, Jane Marple has a certain style that is at once old-fashioned and very modern. She appears to be very conservative but is in fact one step ahead of most of the young people around her. Here is a rave about Miss Marple from an unlikely source: a website called “Feminist Review:”
“I celebrate Miss Marple! All feminists should know this character. Miss Marple’s stories constantly stir up the hornet’s nest of sexism and ageism; this elderly sleuth is treated as “second class” because she’s a woman, she’s old, and therefore, is seen as unable to contribute anything of worth. When she solves the case, and she always does, the people around her are in shock. The old woman has brains, how strange!” (Feminist Review, website)
Though Christie’s other hero, Hercule Poirot, is a detective, his adventures seem to fit more into the “cozy” category of mystery, since he almost never gets his manicured hands dirty, and the resolution generally occurs in a drawing room, with all the suspects obediently present for the grand revelation. Hercule Poirot has so many annoying character traits that even Christie grew weary of him. She complained now and then that the character would not leave her alone! (In her diary she called him “insufferable.”) But the public loved him and adaptations of the Poirot stories continue to run on public television.
Did You Know?
In order to be sure that the ultimate fate of her characters was in her control, Christie wrote a final story for each, titled Curtain and Sleeping Murder respectively, and put them in a bank vault during the 1930’s. During the last two years of her life, as her health failed, she published the stories, ending the life of Poirot, and retiring Miss Marple to her home in St. Mary Meade. Hercule Poirot has the distinction of being the only fictional character ever to receive an obituary in the New York Times.
The mysteries involving both Poirot and Miss Marple are more about figuring things out than running down the criminal. (The dirty, grimier aspects of justice are left to lesser, more active creatures.) As Poirot says in the very first book:
“This affair must all be unravelled from within.” He tapped his forehead. “These little grey cells. It is ‘up to them’—as you say over here.” (Poirot, ch. 10)
One of the most inspiring aspects of Christie’s life is, of course, her longevity. She went on producing excellent mysteries long after most people would have retired, and stayed involved in productions of her work right up until the end of her life. She was married twice and spent many years on archaeological digs with her second husband. She spoke about a time of life that is difficult for many women, but for her was a much-needed “second wind.”
“I have enjoyed greatly the second blooming that comes when you finish the life of the emotions and of personal relations; and suddenly you find—at the age of fifty, say—that a whole new life has opened before you, filled with things you can think about, study, or read about . . . . It is as if a fresh sap of ideas and thoughts was rising in you.”—An Autobiography (1977).
If you haven’t read Agatha Christie in awhile, I suggest listening to a few of the stories through Recorded Books on Tape, or Audible.com. Christie’s prose is so engaging and her dialogue is so believable that recorded versions are a delight. I recently reread Murder on the Orient Express and found (though I remember the ending and there was no surprise in store) that the quick, sure creation of character and the delightful interplay between Poirot and his subordinates is continually fresh. Agatha Christie’s genius continues to shine even after many readings, and that is the mark of a classic.
About the Author: Agatha Christie
In 1890, Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born in Torquay, England. Her father was an outgoing American; her extremely shy mother resembled Agatha in personality. Her mother decided her daughter would not receive a formal education (like Agatha’s older sister) but would be taught to read at age eight. By age five, Agatha had taught herself to read. She subsequently learned from tutors, part-time schooling, and French finishing schools. She also trained as a singer and pianist but she was too nervous to perform. When she was eleven years old, her father died. She and her mother grew increasingly close and began to travel, commencing Agatha’s lifelong love of travel.
In 1912, Agatha met Archie Christie, an aviator joining the Royal Flying Corps. After a rocky courtship, they married in 1914 on Christmas Eve. During the war, Christie became a volunteer nurse, completing the examination of the Society of Apothecaries. Her sister, Madge, challenged her to write a novel, and thus began her writing career with The Mysterious Affair at Styles. Christie’s only daughter was born in 1919. By 1926, her life was turned upside down when her mother died and Archie left her for another woman. Christie remarried in 1930 and accompanied her new husband on archeological trips for the next thirty years; they remained happily married for forty-six years.
Agatha Christie is the best-selling author of all time, with over two billion books worldwide. Over half a century, she wrote eighty novels and short story collections and over a dozen plays, including The Mousetrap, the longest running play in theatrical history. Her inspiration came from the world she knew. A grandson described her as “a person who listened more than she talked, who saw more than she was seen.” She died peacefully in 1976.
Sources:
www.agathachristie.com
A Whimsical Detective:
The Complete Lord Peter Wimsey Stories
by Dorothy L. Sayers
Though I adore Hercule Poirot, I have another brilliant, monocle-sporting detective that I like even better, Lord Peter Wimsey. He first appears in a delightful little novel titled, Whose Body? published in 1923. We are introduced to Lord Peter, book collector, confirmed bachelor and amateur sleuth, when his mother’s neighbor finds a body in his bathtub, “with nothing on but a pair of pince-nez.” Peter’s mother asks him to solve the “problem,” and the fun begins.
Over the next several years, Dorothy Sayers, scholar, poet and teacher, published a series of mysteries featuring Lord Peter, his incomparable butler Bunter (like Jeeves with detective skills) and the love of his life, Harriet Vane. Harriet is obviously Sayers’s alter ego; a scholar/mystery novelist with grave misgivings about marrying the “Lord of the Manor.” In Strong Poison, she is introduced to us as an accused murderess, on trial for the poisoning death of her lover. It is years, and a few more novels, before these two tie the knot, but well worth the journey. Harriet is a very modern character, torn between her desire for independence and a life of the mind and her love for her rescuer and most ardent admirer, the dapper Lord Peter. Because this is a series, we trace her development in a deeper way. Maureen Corrigan, book reviewer for PBS (and a fellow Sayers fan) explains:
“One of the great, largely unacknowledged advantages of series fiction is that a story line can be strung out over several novels, allowing a character to think, falter and reverse direction, as Harriet does.” (Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading, P. 110)
Dorothy Sayers brings a meticulous eye for detail to her plots, and her dry sense of humor combined with her vast knowledge of English manners, customs and class distinctions, create a world that is always a joy to visit. In between “Lord Peter” mysteries, Sayers wrote another excellent novel titled Nine Tailors, (which has nothing to do with sewing) and introduces us to another part of English life that is strange to us: the ancient art of “change-ringing,” in the old churches with their great bell-ringing tradition. (The “Nine Tailors” are
nine bells.)
Did You Know?
Dorothy Sayers was quite a character in her own right. She worked for several years writing advertising copy, until she was able to support herself by the sale of her books and stories. During these years she joined a motorcycle gang, fell in love with a member, and bore him a son, Anthony. Through her study of medieval literature she became friends with C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, and was eventually converted to Christianity.
Dorothy Sayers’s modern counterpart is, in my opinion, P.D. James, another woman writer of detective fiction. Her protagonist, Adam Dalgliesh, is a Scottish poet who doubles as a police commander. All of her novels are literate, thoughtful and beautifully constructed.
About the Author: Dorothy L. Sayers
Dorothy Leigh Sayers was born in Oxford, England on June 13, 1893. She was a popular author, as well as a translator, student of classical and modern languages, and Christian humanist.
She is best known for her Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries. Sayers described him as “a mixture of Fred Astaire and Bertie Wooster.” Sayers herself considered her translation of Dante’s Divina Commedia to be her best work. She also wrote religious essays and plays, and in1943 the Archbishop of Canterbury offered her an honorary doctorate in divinity, which she declined. In 1950, however, she accepted an honorary doctorate in literature from the University of Durham.
Sayers was born in Oxford, where her father was chaplain (and headmaster of the Choir School) of Christ Church College, Oxford. She was educated at Somerville College, Oxford, where she took first-class honors in modern languages, although women could not be granted degrees at that time; she was among the first women to receive a degree when they were allowed a few years later. She worked as a teacher and later as a copywriter in an advertising agency, Benson’s, in London, which she used in one of her mysteries, Murder Must Advertise.
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